Are condos a good investment?

by Sue
(Toronto)

Hey guys... love your site.

I am making my first residential investment soon (in GTA) but I cannot decide if I want to invest in a single family home or a condo. When I add condo fees to the equation it sucks up my cash flow. But, on the other hand, I would have to do little maitenance and will never have to replace a furnace or roof. Would my rental income be better spent paying down the mortgage or put to condo fees?

Do you have any experience with this?

Thanks for taking the time to read my question.

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Aug 30, 2012
 RE: Are Condos a good investment...
by: Tom Karadza

Thanks for the feedback!

This is a BIG question and everyone is going to have their own opinion.

We know people who LOVE condos for exactly the reasons you mentioned. No roof, furnance or plumbing to take care of. On the flipside, there's those condo fees that always seem to go up of course. Single family homes have their own pros and cons.

So...

A good investment to us is something that produces positive cash flow. That way, in bad economic times (either personal or national) it's easy to carry the property.

Also, the investment has to meet our personal goals....do you prefer it to be close to home? Are you investing for pure appreciation or cash flow or both? All these things should be taken into consideration.

We prefer single family b/c we can control the entire property ourselves, we own a little bit of land and can make them cash flow easily enough when purchased in the right area.

So, in our opinion, there's no easy answer to this. Both can be great investments, both can be bad investments.

Decide what you are looking for (cash flow vs. appreciation vs. close to home vs. further away etc.) and use those criteria to define what is right for you.

We realize this may not help much!! Hope there's a little bit of value for you here....

Tom.

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